Prosecutors will this morning hold a press conference in Germany to provide
more detail about the €1 billion treasure trove of art, lost under the Nazis
and found hidden inside a Munich flat

Art historians specialising in returning looted Nazi artwork to their rightful owners have demanded that the German authorities reveal the details of a hugely valuable collection of paintings, discovered in a Munich flat.

The remarkable horde of paintings, valued at an estimated €1 billion, was found hidden behind piles of junk in the flat of reclusive 80-year-old Cornelius Gurlitt. They were discovered by chance in spring 2011 when prosecutors began investigating Mr Gurlitt for tax avoidance – but their existence was only made public at the weekend.

“I think that’s as much of a story as the find itself,” said Anne Webber, founder and co-chair of the commission for Looted Art in Europe. “It’s actually been two and a half years since these paintings were found, and they’ve been kept completely secret. And there are some very hard questions for the Bavarian government about why they’ve kept this list secret.

“We need to ask why they haven’t published a list of all the paintings that have been found, so that the families who are looking for their paintings – and have been looking for the past 75 years – can find them, and have them returned to them,” she added.

The collection has been stored at the customs office in Garching, north of Munich, since it was discovered in 2011, with an art historian hired 18 months ago to provide an expert assessment. Mr Gurlitt could have hidden other works elsewhere, Der Spiegel suggested. Prosecutors in the town of Augsburg will on Tuesday hold a press conference to provide more detail on the find.

Mr Gurlitt’s father Hildebrandt was a prominent Munich art dealer, who is thought to have acquired works deemed “degenerate” that had largely been seized from Jewish collectors.

“We represent hundreds of families around the world and we are looking for thousands of paintings, so we and others want to see a list of those paintings immediately,” said Mrs Webber. “There is no excuse for sitting on it.

“There is a culture of secrecy in Bavaria, and other parts of Germany – but particularly there. We need a culture of transparency and to return these works as quickly as possible.”

Hildebrandt Gurlitt died in 1956, having told the authorities after the war that the art had been destroyed during the Dresden Bombings. His surviving son had apparently kept the collection in his home and is thought to have sold off some of the works as a means of support.

But Mr Gurlitt lived an unusual existence – barely leaving his apartment, in the Schwabing district of Munich. Neighbours claimed that the man with the snow-white hair and slightly-stooped posture had been seen outdoors only twice since August, wheeling his shopping trolley along the road near his flat.

“And when you knock on the door for him, he doesn’t answer,” one neighbour told Munich’s Abendzeitung newspaper.

Thomas Roell, who first wrote about the collection for this weekend’s Focus magazine, told The Daily Telegraph it was possible Mr Gurlitt – who has an Austrian passport – had already abandoned his apartment.

“We learned that he is not officially registered in Germany with any of the authorities. Obviously he paid in cash for everything. He paid for the doctor and hospital in cash so he didn’t need any insurance. Officially he has an Austrian passport.”

Mr Roell said Mr Gurlitt was expected to be prosecuted in Germany for tax evasion but – unusually after such a long investigation – no date for his trial has yet been set.

“Every person who claims that one of those pictures has been looted from, say, his grandfather has to prove his case and that will be very difficult,” he explained.

“I think the German officials knew that it would be difficult to fulfil all the claims that may be made when people learned about the art that’s been found. That’s why we suspect that they tried to keep it quiet for as long as possible, so they can decide what to do with all those pictures. Because otherwise they have to return them to this old man. They have to find a way to make their case as to why he shouldn’t be allowed to take them back.

“It will be a difficult case to prove why these pictures shouldn’t belong to him any more because he is a private owner. This could drag on forever.”